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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25479301">Till the next time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kail_lizuc/pseuds/Kail_lizuc'>Kail_lizuc</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A child, a box, and his babysitters [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Child Doctor (Doctor Who), Gen, Post-Season/Series 05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:01:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25479301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kail_lizuc/pseuds/Kail_lizuc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilfred hadn't seen the Doctor since his granddaughter's wedding, and even then he had known that it would be the last time he ever saw that face again, so he was understandable curious and wary when he saw the TARDIS materialize just across the street.</p><p>He really didn't expect a small child to pop out from it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor &amp; Amy Pond &amp; Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor &amp; Wilfred Mott, The Doctor &amp; Wilfred Mott</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A child, a box, and his babysitters [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840747</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Till the next time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The waitress had just brought Wilfred his breakfast when he heard the distinctively familiar wheezing sound of the Doctor’s TARDIS nearby. But that couldn’t be, because that man was dead —dead because of him, because Wilfred had to go and get himself stuck in a radiation chamber—, and he couldn’t possibly be back now.</p><p>And yet, just across the street, from his seat inside the café, he could see that blue police box of his materialize.</p><p>He held his breath, waiting to see what would come out from its doors. The Doctor had said he’d have to regenerate, that he’d die and a new man would walk away. And if the TARDIS was here now, then surely there was that new man that wasn’t really the Doctor inside it.</p><p>And then, a small child popped out.</p><p>Wilfred blinked, and rubbed his eyes in case he was seeing wrong. But no, the child with the red bowtie was still there, looking around curiously.</p><p>The boy, who couldn’t be older than eight and that kind of remind him of the Doctor in some strange way, suddenly made eye contact with him. Something like pain passed briefly on his face before it was replaced by absolute <em>glee</em>, and he waved enthusiastically at him.</p><p>Wilfred, still a little dazed, waved back.</p><p>
  <em>Did the Doctor have a son or something?</em>
</p><p>The boy ran back into the box, and it was only another minute before he was out again, this time followed by two adults; one a young woman with red hair similar to Donna’s, and the other a young man with a huge nose. The woman seemed exasperated, but in a fond kind of way, while the man was trying to get the boy to slow down and put on a jacket since it was kind of windy and cold outside.</p><p>If Wilfred hadn’t just watched them come out of the TARDIS, then he would have thought they were just another normal family out in the streets.</p><p>Once the man had decided that the child was covered enough and the woman had wrapped a red scarf around his neck, much to the boy’s dismay, they crossed the street and —as Wilfred realized a bit too slow— made their way inside the café he was in.</p><p>“…flat white with two spoons of sugar!” the kid was saying to the young adults as they entered.</p><p>The man raised an eyebrow, “Do you even like that?”</p><p>He huffed indignantly, like his Donna used to do back when she was a little girl, which was admittedly adorable to see, “Yes, I do, Rory. I wouldn’t be asking for it if I didn’t.”</p><p>The boy quickly unwrapped the scarf and tossed it at the young woman, who started to scold him but was ultimately ignored as the boy made a bee-line for Wilfred’s table. He was grinning excitedly when he reached him.</p><p>“Hello!” he greeted, taking a seat across from him. And Wilfred, despite his confusion, found himself infected by his enthusiasm.</p><p>He smiled amicably, “Hello there.”</p><p>The boy opened his mouth to say something, but the redhead woman cut him off, “Theta!” They both turned to see her as she came closer, an apologetic look on her face even as she shot the kid an exasperated look. “Ah, sorry for interrupting your meal, sir. Theta here gets a little enthusiastic sometimes.”</p><p>“It’s fine. Kids can be like that sometimes, I would know,” he waved a hand dismissively. “Besides, this young man here was just saying hello.”</p><p>The boy, Theta, frowned, and stared hard at Wilfred for a moment.</p><p>“Don’t you recognize me?” he asked, confused, and Wilfred got the feeling that he was missing something really important. And then Theta blinked, as if he had remembered something obvious, and smacked himself in the forehead. “Right, of course. New face. You wouldn’t.”</p><p>“Do you know him, Theta?” the woman asked, looking just as perplexed as Wilfred felt.</p><p>“Yes. Well, sort of. He knew my previous face,” he explained, waving his hands about to make a point, and something in Wilfred’s mind finally clicked.</p><p>“Doctor…?” he asked tentatively, and when he saw the boy’s smile widen, he just knew it was him. “But you’re a…”</p><p>“Kid?” The Doctor finished, excited. “Well, yes. I told you, I had to regenerate. This is my new face.”</p><p>“Oh,” he breathed. “Is that how it works?”</p><p>“Not always, but yeah.”</p><p>He couldn’t help it; he let out a relieved chuckled, his heart feeling ten times lighter. So the Doctor wasn’t dead then. He was just a very small child, who would grow up again to become the Doctor Wilfred had known. Or someone better, perhaps, even if he had a little difficulty imagining someone better than the Doctor.</p><p>“You know, for a second there I was convinced you were the Doctor’s child,” he admitted, and the Doctor laughed. Then Wilfred turned towards the woman, who was still looking between the two of them and most likely trying to understand what was happening, and said, “You must be his new companion then?”</p><p>The woman seemed to study him for a moment, but then smiled, “Yes, me and my husband take care of him, make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble.”</p><p>Just as she said that, the young man from before came back from the counter, and glanced between all three of them. “Did I miss anything?”</p><p>“Not much,” the Doctor replied. He gestured wildly between them, “Ponds, I’d like you to meet Wilfred Mott, a good old friend of mine. Wilf, these are Amy and Rory Pond, my most recent friends.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you, sir,” the man, Rory, stuck out his hand, and when Wilfred took it, he noticed the firmness that, oddly enough, reminded him of a soldier.</p><p>“It’s a pleasure,” the woman, Amy, said too, mimicking her husband.</p><p>“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine. Any friend of the Doctor is friend of mine as well,” he replied, and gestured to around the table. “Please, take a seat.”</p><p>After they had sat down and the waitress had brought them their breakfast too, a thought occurred to him.</p><p>“I can still call you Doctor, right? Or did you change it because of the…?” he gestured vaguely at his child sized body.</p><p>“Doctor’s fine. Except when other people can hear, in that case I go by Theta. It’d be tiresome to explain it out every time someone overhears it,” the Doctor explained, and then leaned towards him, resting his weight on his elbows. “Now, tell me; How’s Donna? Is she doing alright?”</p><p>He puffed his chest out with pride, “She’s very happy. Gave me my first great-grandchild a few years ago. They named her Elizabeth. Little Liz, smart as a whip, she got that from her mother.”</p><p>“Good, that’s good,” the Doctor nodded, a wistful smile on his lips that looked so out of place in his childish face. “She’s always been brilliant, it’s only expected her daughter took after her.”</p><p>“She’s making good use of that ticket you got her, you know,” he informed. “She invested and now’s a millionaire. She even insisted on getting me and Sylvia a house on top of a cliff. Got the best view of the stars now.”</p><p>“Oh, that sounds like something she’d do. Good ol’ Donna,” the Doctor commented amused. “I’m glad she’s happy. She deserves it.”</p><p>“Yeah, she does.”</p><p>Even if they didn’t understand everything, and possibly didn’t know much about Donna, Amy and Rory smiled too at that.</p><p>And then the Doctor decided to try his beverage, spitting it back the moment he tasted it and successfully changing the subject completely. It also earned him an exasperated look from Amy, while Rory dried the sections of the table where he had made a mess.</p><p>“Ah, you spilt some on yourself too,” Rory noted, now pushing a tissue to the boy’s jacket to try to clean it (he instinctively acted like a father; Wilfred smiled to himself when he noticed). “I thought you said you liked that drink?”</p><p>“I too thought I did!” the boy exclaimed indignantly, and Wilfred really shouldn’t find this as amusing as he did. He glanced at Amy, who was shaking her head and smiling in that way parents usually did when their kid did something terribly exasperating but also kind of funny. The boy continued, this time a little more sheepish, “My last face loved it, that’s why I asked for it. Although, in hindsight, it should’ve been obvious I wouldn’t like it, what with the different taste buds and all.”</p><p>Amy rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’m gonna go get you another drink,” she announced, standing up. “Hot cocoa should be fine, right? And maybe see if they have some jammie dodgers too.”</p><p>At the mention of that, the child immediately perked up. Wilfred chuckled.</p><p>After that, all four of them spent a good hour or two just talking, catching up and enjoying each other’s company.</p><p>They told him about some of their adventures, how they had first met the Doctor when Amy was just a child herself, and how they basically became his babysitters (at which the Doctor had obviously protested, because he wasn’t a <em>child</em> —even though he totally was, in Wilfred’s eyes— and therefore didn’t <em>need</em> a babysitter. Amy had just rolled her eyes and reminded him of how just the night before he had asked her to read him a bedtime story —which sounded adorable, and it wasn’t something Wilfred ever thought he’d relate back to the Doctor—, and the child had spluttered a bit but couldn’t actually deny it).</p><p>Wilfred, on his part, told the couple about how he and the Doctor met, and some nice stories of his younger years, and about his late wife, his daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter.</p><p>He and Rory ended up bonding over their past as soldiers; Wilfred having fought in the war and Rory apparently having been a roman soldier (it did explain the soldier-like grip when they shook hands, though).</p><p>“It’s a long story,” Rory had said, “But basically I spent two thousand years guarding this box Amy was trapped in. I was a roman centurion back then, and also made of plastic, which is why I didn’t die of old age in all that time.”</p><p>“And then she got out with her younger self’s help, we found my exploding TARDIS, we rebooted the universe— like Rory said, very long story, don’t ask,” the Doctor added, which made literally no sense to Wilfred but half of what he usually said didn’t make sense to him anyway so it was okay. “And then they woke up just in time for their wedding.”</p><p>“Which the Doctor was late for, as usual,” Amy remarked amused.</p><p>“Hey, I got there for the dancing!”</p><p>Wilfred was about to add something when his phone went off. He took it from his pocket and answered the call, which happened to be from Sylvia. After a few minutes of reassuring her that he was alright and that no, he wasn’t lost somewhere, and yes, he’d be back soon, he hung up, and smiled apologetically at the trio.</p><p>“That was my daughter,” he explained, standing up and leaving a few bills on the table. “I should be getting back home now, but it was nice meeting all of you.”</p><p>They smiled and stood up too, paying for their stuff as well.</p><p>“You too. We had a great time,” Amy said, walking around the table to hug him.</p><p>“I hope we meet again,” Rory agree, giving him a handshake.</p><p>They walked together to the café entrance, and once outside, Amy and Rory lingered just a few steps behind, to let them talk alone for a moment.</p><p>The Doctor stopped, spinning around to face him and adjusting his bowtie in the process. And even if Wilfred wasn’t a very tall man, the Doctor still had to tilt his head back slightly to make eye contact.</p><p>“I don’t think I ever properly thanked you, Wilfred.”</p><p>He frowned, suddenly confused, “What for?”</p><p>“You inspired me to be better when I didn’t have anybody else, and well, you helped me save the world too that day. Thank you,” he said, a soft smile on his face as he fidgeted diminutively in place. “Remember… Remember when I said that I’d be proud if you were my dad?”</p><p>“Yes…?”</p><p>“The regeneration didn’t change those feelings.”</p><p>“Oh,” he breathed, and then smiled, extending his arms in invitation. “Come here, son.”</p><p>The Doctor giggled and returned the hug. When they broke apart, the Doctor straightened a little and saluted (which must’ve looked adorable from the outside, he realized later).</p><p>“It’s been an honour, Wilfred.”</p><p>And Wilfred saluted back.</p><p>“Till the next time, Doctor.”</p>
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